Banks buy politicians — on sale, now!

Bill Moyers on PBS, February 13, 2009

On Tuesday, February 10, 2009 Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner unveiled the Obama administration’s plan to address the crisis in the financial sector. The strategy he outlined calls for the largest Federal intervention in banks and finance since the Great Depression, flooding as much as $2.5 trillion into the system. Given its size and scope — the bill’s lack of detail drew a widely negative response from analysts and economists.

Although he thinks the details are important, Simon Johnson, Professor of Economics at MIT, worries more that Geithner and the Obama administration won’t address a big underlying problem and be tough enough on the politically powerful banking lobby.

 

Too Big To Fail?

Johnson explains to Bill Moyers on the JOURNAL that the U.S. financial system reminds him more of the embattled emerging markets he encountered in his time with the International Monetary Fund than that of a developed nation. As such, Johnson believes that the U.S. financial system needs a “reboot,” breaking up the biggest banks, in some cases firing management and wiping out shareholder value. Johnson tells Bill Moyers that such a move wouldn’t be popular with the powerful banking lobby: “I think it’s quite straightforward, in technical or economic terms. At the same time I recognize it’s very hard politically.”Without drastic action, Johnson argues, taxpayers are merely subsidizing a wealthy powerful industry without forcing necessary systemic changes: “Taxpayer money is ensuring their bonuses. We’re making sure that banks survive. And eventually, of course, the economy will turn around. Things will get better. The banks will be worth a lot of money. And they will cash out. And we will be paying higher taxes, we and our children, will be paying higher taxes so those people could have those bonuses. That’s not fair. It’s not acceptable. It’s not even good economics.”

Bank on America

Bank on this.

 

Community-based movements to halt the flood of foreclosures have been building across the country. They turned out in Cleveland once again in October, when a coalition of grassroots housing groups rallied outside the Cuyahoga County courthouse, calling for a foreclosure freeze and constructing a mock graveyard of Styrofoam headstones bearing the names of local communities decimated by the housing crisis. (They did not, unfortunately, stop the more than 1,000 foreclosure filings in the county the following month.) In Boston the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America began protesting in front of Countrywide Financial offices in October 2007. Within weeks, Countrywide had agreed to work with the group to renegotiate loans. In Philadelphia ACORN and other community organizations helped to pressure the city council to order the county sheriff to halt foreclosure auctions this past March. Philadelphia has since implemented a program mandating “conciliation conferences” between defaulting homeowners and lenders. ACORN organizers say the program has a 78 percent success rate at keeping people in their homes. One activist group in Miami has taken a more direct approach to the crisis, housing homeless families in abandoned bank-owned homes without waiting for government permission.

It’s unlikely, though, that any of these activists will be able to relax soon. 

The Nation

 

When I was a lad, I ran off to San Francisco, like hippies from all over, to be free and unconventional and rid of the whole corporate America trip.

I ended up working at the Bank of America, thanks to a pink collar stoner chick who fudged my typing test.

While working at their headquarters, I learned about the proud heritage of the bank, which had rebuilt San Francisco in the early 20th century, in the wake of its great earthquake. 

Today, of course, bankers are universally regarded as monuments to heroic greed, spectacular corruption and epic incompetence–one short step above child molesters on the social scale. Adrift in their bubbles, intoxicated by their own emissions, only they remain unaware of this downward turn in public perception.

When a reporter for the AP politely asked them what they were doing with billions of dollars of the taxpayers’ bailout ransom, they sniffily replied to this effect: “Listen, you tawdry little man–we don’t give a fig about you and your shabby readers. We have parties to attend. Kindly pay up and shut up. Then find your way out.”

Men have short memories. It wasn’t so long ago in the long view of history that, faced with a similar situation, the rabble roused themselves in the streets of Paris and handed the nobility their heads. Good times.

Today, gun shops can’t keep up with demand.

Being a peaceful sort and averse to noise, I got to thinking that maybe it doesn’t have to come to bloodshed and armed insurrection.

Is it conceivable that bankers today are capable, if only in theory, of once again doing the right thing? Could they ever, even in an imagined world, earn their fat paychecks and lead us out of the mess that is largely their own creation? 

Trying to wrap my head around that wild notion, I am once again transported back to a more innocent era.

All across the nation

Such a strange vibration …

 

 

 

Tyrants of the world, unite!

“Let the winds of doctrine blow me.” (Milton)

Russian treason bill could hit Kremlin critics

By DAVID NOWAK, Associated Press Writer

MOSCOW – A new law drafted by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s Cabinet would allow authorities to label any government critic a traitor — a move that leading rights activists condemned Wednesday as a chilling reminder of the times under Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.

The draft extends the definition of treason from breaching Russia’s external security to damaging the nation’s constitutional order, sovereignty or territorial integrity. That would essentially let authorities interpret any act against the interests of the state as treason — a crime prosecutable by up to 20 years in prison.

Prominent rights activists said passage of the bill would catapult Russia’s justice system back to the times of Stalin’s purges.

“It returns the Russian justice to the times of 1920-1950s,” the activists said in a statement, urging lawmakers to oppose what they described as the “legislation in the spirit of Stalin and Hitler.”

We salute you

Many thanks to an old friend for passing this along:

Who is this American warrior?

It has happened here

 

List of Journalists Arrested at the RNC

Posted on September 10.2008 by Josh Stearns

During and before the Republican National Convention police in St. Paul arrested numerous journalists, including Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman and her staff, members of a number of independent video groups, an AP photographer and staff from local broadcast stations and newspapers around St. Paul.

Arresting and detaining journalists for doing their jobs is a gross violation of free speech and freedom of the press. Journalists must be free to do their jobs without intimidation. On September 5th, local citizens delivered more than 60,000 letters to St. Paul City Hall calling on Mayor Chris Coleman and local law enforcement officials to drop all charges against journalists arrested while covering protests outside the Republican National Convention.

Below we have begun collecting names of journalists who were charged and links to news reports about their arrests. This is a growing list. If you have information about a journalist who is not listed here please email Josh Stearns at jstearns@freepress.net.

Name	Outlet	Arrested	Charge
Sharif Abdel Kouddous	Democracy Now!	Sept 1 and Sept 4	Suspicion of felony riot and unlawful assembly
Nicole Salazar	Democracy Now!	Sept 1	Suspicion of felony riot
Amy Goodman	Democracy Now!	Sept 1	Obstruction of a legal process and interference with a peace officer.
Matt Rourke	Associated Press	Sept 1	Gross misdemeanor riot charge
Edward Matthews	Univ. of Kentucky (journalism student)	Sept 1	Riot charge
Britney McIntosh	Univ. of Kentuky (journalism student)	Sept 1	Riot charge
Jim Winn	Univ. of Kentuky (journalism advisor)	Sept 1	Riot charge
Lambert Rochfort	PepperSpray Productions	Sept 3	Held without charge
Joe LaSac	PepperSpray Productions	Sept 3	Held without charge
Stephen Maturen	Minnesota Daily	Sept 4	Peppersprayed and ziptied – only held momentarily.
Jonathan Malat	KARE 11	Sept 4	Unlawful assembly
Tom Aviles	WCCO	Sept 4	Unlawful assembly
Amy Forliti	Associated Press	Sept 4	Unlawful assembly
Jon Krawczynski	Associated Press	Sept 4	Unlawful assembly
Dean Treftz	U-Wire (national college wire service)	Sept 4	Unlawful assembly
Jeff Schorfheide	Badger-Herald	Sept 4	Unlawful assembly
Matt Snyders	University of Iowa / former reporter for Daily Iowan	Sept 4	Unlawful assembly
Christopher Patton	Daily Iowan	Sept 4	Unlawful assembly
Rick Rowley	Big Noise Films	Sept 4	Unlawful assembly
Jon Wise	MyFox	Sept 4	Unlawful assembly
Alice Kathloff	MyFox	Sept 4	Unlawful assembly
Art Hughes	Public News Service	Sept 4	Unlawful assembly
Jerry Snook	Westwood One	Sept 4	Unlawful assembly
Ben Garvin	St. Paul Pioneer Press	Sept 4	Unlawful assembly
Jason Nicholas	New York Post	Sept 1	Unlawful assembly and obstructing the legal process
Wendy Binion	Portland IndyMedia	Sept 2	Felony conspiracy to riot
Geraldine Cahill	The Real News	Sept 4	Unlawful assembly
Ania Smolenskaia	The Real News	Sept 4	Unlawful assembly
Suzanne Hughes	The Uptake	Sept 4	Unlawful assembly
Ted Johnson	Variety	Sept 4	Unlawful assembly
Alice Kalthoff	MyFoxdfw.com	Sept 4	Unlawful assembly
John P Wise	MyFox	Sept 4	Unlawful assembly
Eileen Clancy	I-Witness Video	August 26	Unknown
Anita Braithwaite	Glass Bead Video Collective	August 26	Unknown
Olivia Katz	Glass Bead Video Collective	August 26	Unknown
Nick Brooks	Downtown Express	Sept 4	Unlawful assembly and interfering with legal process
Sam Stoker	Association of Alternative Newsweeklies	Sept 4	Unlawful assembly
Paul Demko	Minnesota Independent	?	Unknown
Emily Forman	I-Witness video group	?	Unknown
Malisa Jahn	I-Witness video group	?	Unknown
Elizabeth Press	Democracy Now!	?	Unknown
Sheila Regan	Twin Cities Daily Planet	?	Unknown
Seth Rowe	Sun Newspapers	?	Unknown
Mark Skinner	University of Nevada Las Vegas Rebel Yell reporter	?	Unknown
Vlad Teichberg	Glass Bead Video Collective	?	Unknown
Nathan Weber	Chicago Freelance Photographer	?	Unknown
Tony Webster	Twin Cities Independent Media	?	Unknown
Alex Lilly	Portland Indymedia	?	Unknown
Charlie B	MTV Think blogger	?	Unknown
Andy Birkey	Minnesota Independent	?	Unknown
Matt Nelson	University of Iowa Photojournalism student	?	Unknown
Mark Ovaska	Rochester freelance photographer	?	Unknown
Chad Davis	Freelance Photographer	?	Unknown
Dawn Zuppelli	Rochester IndyMedia	?	Unknown

Free Press

Fossil Men Refuse to Go Quietly

A polar bear swims recently in open water off the coast of Alaska. The shrinking sea ice increases the pressure on polar bears, who usually hunt on the ice. (By Geoff York — World Wildlife Fund)

By Kari Lydersen

Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 31, 2008

CHICAGO — The American Petroleum Institute and four other business groups filed suit Thursday against Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director H. Dale Hall, joining Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s administration in trying to reverse the listing of the polar bear as a threatened species.

On Aug. 4, the state of Alaska filed a lawsuit opposing the polar bear’s listing, arguing that populations as a whole are stable and that melting sea ice does not pose an imminent threat to their survival. The suit says polar bears have survived warming periods in the past. The federal government has 60 days from the filing date to respond.

One of the plaintiff in Thursday’s lawsuit, the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), lauded the choice of Palin as the Republican vice presidential nominee for reasons including her advocacy of Alaskan oil and gas exploration, which many fear could be affected by the bear’s protected status.

NAM and the petroleum institute were joined in the lawsuit by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Mining Association and the American Iron and Steel Institute. They object to what they call the “Alaska Gap” in relation to the special rule the federal government issued in May in conjunction with the polar bear’s protected status. The rule, meant to prevent the polar bear’s status from being used as a tool for imposing greenhouse gas limits, exempts projects in all states except Alaska from undergoing review in relation to emissions.

NAM Vice President Keith McCoy said the group sees the rule as unfairly subjecting Alaskan industry to greenhouse gas controls and also opening a back door for greenhouse gas regulation nationwide.

… the heavens fall.

You got a problem with that.

Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich. (Napoleon)

The global financial crisis is set to get worse, with a large US bank likely to collapse in the next few months, a former IMF chief economist has warned.

Kenneth Rogoff’s comments came as shares in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac sank on a report that the home lenders would, in effect, be nationalised.

Despite hopes that the US economy had turned the corner, Mr Rogoff claimed it was “not out of the woods”.

“I would even go further to say ‘the worst is to come’,” he said.

“We’re not just going to see mid-sized banks go under in the next few months,” said Mr Rogoff, who held the IMF role between 2001 and 2004.

“We’re going to see a whopper, we’re going to see a big one, one of the big investment banks or big banks.”

BBC

———–

Meet the rich

The gap between rich and poor is wider than ever. But that doesn’t seem to bother Britain’s wealthiest earners. In an extract from their new book, Polly Toynbee and David Walker describe the jaw-dropping arrogance they encountered when they asked some of the fat cats to justify their lives of luxury.

From the marbled 20th floor of a glass tower in Canary Wharf the view of the river is breathtaking. It snakes down to the Thames barrier, glinting in the sunset. Close to the new city lie the serried ranks of East End estate blocks. The view is typical of London: glossy new wealth nestling close to old and persisting penury. Precious little money has trickled down from this gilded new town in the sky to its neighbours below.

Unjust Rewards

The view is a reminder of the widening gap. History, many like to believe, is a Whiggish tale of wealth, social progress and fairer distribution, an onward march: we all wear the same clothes, meet on equal terms on Facebook. Yet background predicts who will run the banks and who will clean their floors. It’s not happenstance; it is largely pre-programmed. General mobility is a myth. The top 10% of income earners get 27.3% of the cake, while the bottom 10% get just 2.6%. Twenty years ago the average chief executive of a FTSE 100 company earned 17 times the average employee’s pay; now it is more than 75 times.

———-

Not Keeping Up With Our Parents: The Decline of the Professional Middle Class

by Nan Mooney

From Publishers Weekly
Young people who were raised to believe that a college education guarantees them a spot in the middle class are instead grappling with rising levels of debt, stagnant wages and ballooning basic expenses, argues Mooney, [who] suggests that college graduates who choose creative or service professions, such as journalism, teaching and social work, generally find themselves in low-paying jobs that, paradoxically, require high-priced educations and even graduate degrees. The struggle to pay off student loans sets off a spiral of financial insecurity, as these educated professionals face escalating costs for housing, health insurance and child care.

Save the Internet: Take Action

Look at it this way: If the fat cats take over the Net, it will start to look like prime time TV — full of vacuous “reality” programs featuring no-talent buffoons fattening the wallets of brain-dead producers.

Noooooooo! It’s too horrible to contemplate. Act now, before it’s too late!

Save the Internet: Take Action:

The Gratitude Campaign

To all our men and women in uniform …

The Gratitude Campaign

ATTN: Lewis Black re: Wal Mart

Brain-damaged woman at center of Wal-Mart suit

March 25, 2008

CNN

Debbie Shank breaks down in tears every time she’s told her 18-year-old son was killed in Iraq. Shank, 52, suffered brain damage in a car accident nearly eight years ago. It was the beginning of …

Walmart Successfully Sues Brain-Damaged

Worker For $469,216 [Walmart]

March 25, 2008

Consumerist / Ben Popken

A Walmart worker who was hit by a truck and left brain-dead-damaged has lost her final round of appeals and must repay the retailer $469,216. This is because she both had Walmart pay for her medical …

Wal Mart News » BuzzTracker News Headlines